"If the puck stops, or if the player's momentum stops, and particularly reverses, then there's an issue," Campbell said. "The problem is if you're skating forward, you can pull the puck back, or stickhandle, and that will stop [the puck] at times, or a curl-and-drag sometimes will stop it. There is some confusion and misinterpretation."

During the summer, the Competition Committee recommended the removal of the spin-o-rama move from the shootout and during penalty-shot attempts. The NHL Board of Governors approved the recommendation, but it was not passed by the executive committee of the NHL Players' Association.

"We've had this discussion at the general managers' meetings on a couple of occasions," Campbell said. "There wasn't a lot of appetite for spin-o-ramas. When you spin around and put your butt into the goaltender or if you go [into] the crease, you are dangerously close to being called for goaltender interference; particularly if you do make contact with the goalie in his crease, it would be disallowed."

The sight of Montreal Canadiens enforcer George Parros hitting the ice during a fight with Toronto Maple Leafs enforcer Colton Orr Tuesday night has rallied both supporters of fighting in the National Hockey League, and its detractors.

But the NHL says Parros’ injury won’t lead to the removal of fisticuffs from the game.

“At the current time, there is not an appetite to change the rules with respect to fighting,” said NHL Senior Executive VP of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell in an email to Global News.

Regarding Parros’ injury, he said:

“We never like to see players injured, but the nature of the game does result in players being injured from all types of aspects of the game.”

The NHL will address the always controversial state of officiating - and the perception that standard of enforcement slipped during the 2011-12 season - at a special August summit meeting featuring representatives from the league’s general managers, coaches, players and officials.

According to Colin Campbell, the NHL’s senior vice-president of hockey operations, the summer get-together will replace the annual research and development camp, and will try to clarify exactly teams want the game called.

“In March, some teams said to us that they had an issue,” said Campbell Wednesday, after NHL general managers met prior to Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final. “They said, ‘We think the standard’s dropped.’ Well, the standard on what? Holding? Interference? If it’s interference, is it interference off the faceoff? Is it off the entry? Is it the forward? Is it the defenceman? You’ve got to tell us so we can tell the referees how to call it.”

Campbell said he invited all 30 NHL teams to submit examples of plays they had issue with. Only nine complied - and 85 per cent of the examples centred on interference on the fore-check, said Campbell.

“Never smile at a playoff game, particularly the finals, when you’re in the building,” said Campbell, the league’s senior executive vice-president. “If one of the teams sees you and they’ve lost, most likely in their minds they think you’re laughing at something that happened in the game that happened to them.”

Campbell, however, was happy to ignore that rule for the first time in more than a decade in June. Campbell decided — with the backing of his friends and colleagues — to recuse himself from his usual duties as chief disciplinarian and top video-review man.

His son, Gregory, was playing for the Boston Bruins trying to win the Cup. It was a conflict of interest. But really, what hockey dad could resist cheering for his son at the Cup final?

Thirteen years and $15.3-million (all currency U.S.) in fines and forfeited salary (he kept track) after Colin Campbell became the NHL’s sheriff, he is leaving that part of his job with no regrets.

“No, none at all,” Campbell, 58, said shortly before the Stanley Cup final ended. “It takes stamina and energy to do this and it wears away after 13 years. Sometimes the tank gets empty and you have to sit back and take a run at something else.”

Regrets are for the critics and there is no shortage of them where Campbell is concerned. Most of them are media people or fans of teams whose players were sidelined by a Campbell decision before he gave up the duties of issuing supplementary discipline for incidents on the ice.

Their biggest complaint is a lack of consistency in Campbell’s decisions.

His tenure was marked by controversy from the outset, even more so in recent years with the increased attention on concussions and hits to the head. While taking a leading role among leagues in understanding the concussion issue, the N.H.L. was slow to punish players for head shots, and Campbell bore the brunt of the criticism.

Most do not understand that the league’s discipline policies are established by the owners and general managers along with the players union, and none of those parties favor long suspensions.

Campbell merely enforced the policies, unless his son Gregory’s team was involved, in which case his deputy, Mike Murphy, stepped in. (Gregory Campbell plays for Boston.) After each incident, Campbell was subject to intense lobbying from all sides.

Still Campbell was not faultless in executing his duties. He justified his rulings by saying he had a duty to preserve the game’s physical nature, fearing that if he imposed the maximum punishment, players would become more tentative.

In my view, Campbell’s integrity is unimpeachable, but eventually the optics of being the head of discipline in a league where his son had a prominent role this season became too difficult to ignore. Campbell recuses himself in any series involving Gregory and thus is at the Stanley Cup final as a spectator, leaving the disciplinary duties and video reviews to his staff - primarily Mike Murphy and Kris King.

The primary benefit of shifting duties in hockey operations is that it gives the NHL a chance to revamp the disciplinary process.

Campbell has long believed that there can be no one-size-fits-all standard of discipline because no two NHL plays are ever exactly alike - and that multiple factors, including a players’ history of reckless play, must factor into any disciplinary decision.

Others disagree - and believe the system needs to be more narrowly codified, in the same way the ordinary judicial system has a known list of penalties for anyone who breaks the law.

Campbell will remain a key component in Hockey Operations and as such will continue to oversee such events as future general managers meetings.

Sources tell TSN Brendan Shanahan will likely take over, but there could be somewhat of an overhaul of how supplemental discipline is handled.

Shanahan’s role has continually evolved with the league. He is currently working as the NHL’s point person in dealing with equipment changes in conjunction with Mathieu Schneider and the NHLPA and is the lead man in organizing the league’s Research and Development camps.

Dan Bylsma is as measured and supportive as a coach gets in the NHL. For him to say, “I don’t think you can talk about eliminating headshots as an organization and not expect that to be examined,” well, it shows why Campbell doesn’t have to worry about Shero and Lemieux defending Cooke now.

They can’t.

No way Shero could ever go to another GM meeting arguing a no-tolerance head shot rule if he fought against a heavy suspension this time. He wouldn’t be taken seriously. And Lemieux loses all moral ground about safety if he fights for this player at this time.

The NHL and its chief of hockey operations made mistakes. Those mistakes have impacted Marc Savard. Call the guy and tell him it never should have happened. Apologize to the PA and the fans. Hockey people know Campbell’s reputation and if it’s as strong as the league statements of support would have you believe, then there is plenty of political capital to use to get by this.

And you owe your son an apology, Colin. You have put him in a very uncomfortable situation in the Boston clubhouse. Greg seems like the type of man who can handle the heat but just the same, he deserves the call. After all, his dad’s comments were about a teammate.

And enough with the “we did nothing wrong, we are men of integrity” spiel. A simple admission of making a mistake will do. Please don’t tell me that the emperor is wearing a beautiful robe today. We all know better.

“I want to talk about the matter of Colie Campbell and the e-mails and the assertion by some people on the Internet and in the media that some internal e-mails that he wrote three years ago somehow suggest his decisions on supplemental discipline have been in some way biased.

“There are a variety of unfortunate aspects to these assertions, and perhaps the most unfortunate of all is that the people making them have not had the opportunity to observe Colie’s professionalism and integrity. He brings that to every one of his many duties with the NHL day in and day out, year after year. He takes his job extremely seriously, and it is a very difficult job. He takes his service to the game, the teams and the players as seriously as any human being can and he is somebody of the utmost integrity, and that’s the way people around the League view him.”

Brian Burke figured if there had been e-mail when he was the lord of the NHL’s office of discipline, the current firestorm over Colin Campbell’s indelicate messages to staffers would look like a single sparkler on a windy day.

“I felt exactly like Colie felt,” Burke told ESPN.com on Wednesday. “There were divers and clowns in our league and I called them that.”

The only difference is Campbell provided such assessment in electronic mail that lived on long past the moment that spawned the comments which ultimately ended up as evidence in a wrongful dismissal suit and fodder for the media.

“If I’d used e-mail, I’d have used the same language,” said Burke, who was vice president and director of hockey operations for the NHL from 1993-98. “Only I didn’t get caught because there was no e-mail trail.”

Even before ‘Colie-mail’ arrived in our collective in-box this week, there has been outrage.

Fans have been calling for NHL VP and league disciplinarian Colin Campbell’s head for weeks, months and, in some cases, years.

The same goes for the media, who have written thousands upon thousands of words expressing shock, dismay and ridicule for how the NHL conducts its disciplinary business.

We have seen and heard it all concerning both Campbell and the dispensing of justice, NHL style. Resign in shame. Overhaul the system and institute a tribunal. Do I hear a call for a 10-game suspension? Lifetime ban, anyone?

Not an easy act for the Commish. Campbell has been a good foot soldier doing a dreadful job for a long time. Now he has been shown to be a man documented to have an embarrassing bias, doing a job that demands impartiality and fairness. That alone makes his play offsides.

Bettman kept Campbell on the job in March when his dillydallying and foot shuffling left players with heads scrambled, careers in jeopardy. One of them, that “little fake artist’’ Savard, only hopes he gets to resume his livelihood. Best now that Campbell finds work elsewhere.

(Colin) Campbell has the NHL’s toughest - and arguably, worst - job. Only the officials are anywhere close. Yes, his rulings are maddeningly inconsistent. Everyone wants tough suspensions, or a crackdown on hits to the head - until it affects their team. But that’s why you have to be above reproach.

He is a polarizing figure. People who like him will defend him without question. People who don’t criticize him mercilessly. He learned a hard lesson here. Be careful what you write. He wasn’t, and, as a result, he’s put his objectivity into question - even if the evidence suggests otherwise.

If any good emerges from the tempest surrounding Campbell Monday, that might be it – eventually take all the discretion out of the supplementary discipline process and make punishment one-size-fits all. You might not get justice in the purest form of the term, but it will take all of the guessing out of the process. And that seems to be what a growing number people want – black-and-white answers to questions where there now exists multiple shades of grey.

NHL vice president and league disciplinarian Colin Campbell is under fire for comments he made in a string of emails to then director of officiating Stephen Walkom.

Posted on hockey website http://www.mc79hockey.com and w,ritten by Tyler Dellow, the emails raise questions about Campbell’s impartiality, especially as it pertains to his son Gregory, an NHL player who was then on the Florida Panthers, but now plays for the Boston Bruins.

The email correspondence became a matter of public record in the wrongful dismissal case of referee Dean Warren against the NHL.

Contacted by TSN for his reaction, Campbell said: “For me, it’s much ado about nothing. Stephen and I would have banter back and forth and Stephen knows I’m a (hockey) dad venting and both of us knowing it wouldn’t go any further than that….

The NHL defended Colin Campbell on Monday in the wake of 3-year-old e-mails that surfaced and quoted the league’s disciplinarian saying unflattering things about players as well as former referee Dean Warren.

Never put anything into an email that you wouldn’t be fine with seeing in print on the front page of a national newspaper. If you’re a Bruins fan, you’re now forever justified in bitching that every call went against you because Colin Campbell hates Marc Savard. If you want your team to be treated favourably, acquire Greg Campbell, because Colin Campbell will watch all your games and bitch about bad calls. Also, it would appear that if you’re a GM and you’re not constantly filling Campbell’s ear in an attempt to get the refs you like you like, you aren’t doing your job.

Oh and one more - if you suspect that the NHL is run by bozos (in fairness to Walkom, I don’t think he comes off poorly in the emails, although he wasn’t found to be a particularly credible witness), Campbell’s emails aren’t going to do a lot to convince you otherwise. Funny stuff.

The NHL’s disciplinarian was at home on his couch Monday, flipping between the three games and hoping they’d be played without incident. Suddenly, his cellphone started ringing with an unknown number, and that could only mean one thing: Commissioner Gary Bettman was on the other end of the line and wanted to get Campbell’s opinion on the latest possible head shot….

“It’s been tough and it hasn’t surprised us at all,” Campbell said Tuesday. “We knew it was going to be this difficult. We also knew that we were going to get criticized, probably a lot from the people who told us to do it — the managers and teams.”

You have to wonder if all of the pundits who trashed Colin Campbell for allowing the suspension of Niklas Hjalmarsson to end in time for the Blackhawks-Sabres rematch are feeling a little silly right now.

The Sabres went into Chicago last night and concentrated more on playing hockey and less on exacting revenge. So much less that they even took a flyer on engaging Hjalmarsson in the typical obligatory early first period now-this-will-settle-things fight. Patrick Kaleta was credited with two hits, and there were no fighting majors in the game, which Chicago won 4-3.

This turn of events comes as no surprise to the many wise hockey fans who have seen these situations too many times before. For all of the hype that precluded the rematch, this game had all the makings of - well, just another hockey game.

For starters, Campbell had sent out a warning to Kaleta and his teammates that the Wheel of Discipline was still in service and that he wouldn’t be afraid to spin it harder. And second, it’s no secret around the league that the Sabres collectively just don’t have the personality for such ugly fisticuff-filled affairs.

Colin Campbell was just on Fan590 and discussed the proposed rule changes, instant reply and a few other topics.

He also mentioned and I am paraphrasing here. “Maybe we should look at how the conferences are set up” and he used the Wings first and second round opponents as an example. First in Phoenix then in San Jose, three hour time difference in each series.

...Still, it’s hard to imagine the NBA’s David Stern or Roger Goodell of the NFL allowing an underling and mediocrity like Campbell dictate league policy that was fundamentally wrong, unfair to Savard and the Bruins, and also a public relations nightmare for the NHL. Bettman should have stepped in.

That said, the damage to the NHL’s image would have been much worse if the mainstream U.S. sports media had any real interest in what was happening in the NHL. They don’t. In Canada, most of the hockey media have been giving their pal “Colie” a free pass for years.

Enlightened hockey people view Campbell’s record as one in which the thugs were treated lightly and victims largely ignored.

The only person who seems to understand Colin Campbell’s pattern of punishment is Campbell himself. The suspensions he hands down are arbitrary and erratic—swayed by non-evidence, hunch, gut feelings, anecdotes and back-channel influence peddlers—and they are almost never clearly explained. He establishes precedent and contradicts it. He makes exceptions based on flawed premises and then concludes his arguments illogically and capriciously. No one, no one, knows what is allowed and what is not allowed. It is Dartboard Justice.

How does the Wild’s Derek Boogaard get five games on a first-offense elbow last season but Phoenix’s Ed Jovanovski gets two on a third blow to the head in two years—and second in a month—just a week ago?

How does one man arbitrarily render discipline based seemingly on no criteria?

Critics joke that (Colin) Campbell must have a dartboard in his office, although as a blog commenter said on “Russo’s Rants” the other day, it’s more like “Wheel of Fortune” because eventually Campbell would get good at throwing darts.

By dodging transparency and then showing zero candor, Campbell leaves the league open to criticism.

But after hearing Campbell on the radio Thursday justify why he didn’t suspend Pittsburgh’s Sergei Gonchar for his blow to the head of the Wild’s Cal Clutterbuck, it’s probably best he keeps muzzling himself.

His official title in the league directory no longer is operative. This was the week in which Colin Campbell first and foremost became the NHL’s Cleaner, in charge of dust-busting every single potential scandal under the rug, never to be seen or dealt with again.

Let’s face it. Five years into its proclaimed “partnership” with the players, the NHL has become a monolithic power, unopposed and unchallenged (except by a foolhardy litigant named Jim Balsillie), dictated on the business side by Gary Bettman and Bill Daly, ruled on the hockey side by Campbell, whose decisions become more personal, more quixotic, less credible and thus less worthy of respect by the day.

* While on the air, listeners can call into the show at 1-877-645-6696, or send questions/comments to this email address: nhlhour@nhl.com
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A prominent National Hockey League source insists that the next general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs will be Colin Campbell, currently the senior executive vice-president and director of hockey operations for the league and the man who metes out discipline to miscreant players. Campbell, a former player and assistant coach with the Detroit Red Wings who was coach of the New York Rangers from 1994-97, has no previous experience as an NHL GM. If Campbell is the man, look for ex-Leafs coach Mike Murphy to be promoted from his role as senior vice-president of hockey operations (Toronto) to replace Campbell at the league’s head offices in New York.

Once Campbell moves on to take a GM or coaching job with a team, the establishment of a three-year term limit for all future NHL disciplinarians. And in addition, hiring practices that only bring aboard candidates who possess not even the slightest interest in eventually working as coach, GM or a high-level management type for one of the league’s 30 teams.

If you followed those guidelines, you’d wind up hiring a chief policeman unconcerned about burning bridges with future employers. Instead, he or she would be able to concentrate on one job only: doling out the proper deterrents to ensure the NHL’s rules are followed to the letter.

Asked about Simon’s agreement with Islanders owner Charles Wang to seek counseling in an effort to understand what made him snap for the second time in nine months after hitting the Rangers’ Ryan Hollweg with his stick in March, Campbell was recorded saying he hoped it would help Simon to meet with “the drug and alcohol, uh, uh, those doctors.” NHL spokesman Frank Brown quickly clarified that the doctors who deal with substance abuse under the NHL/NHLPA agreement also handle behavioral issues.

But the “stereotyping” horse was out of the barn. The gut reaction of Islanders coach Ted Nolan, who described Campbell’s assumption as “sickening” was understandable.

“I try to watch what’s happening on the ice and then discuss it with Mike Murphy (former Maple Leaf head coach and now vice-president of hockey operations), Kris King (former Maple Leaf player and now director of hockey operations) and Jim Gregory (former Maple Leaf general manager and now senior vice-president of NHL hockey operations),” offered Campbell.

“There is a lot happening in NHL hockey these days. You have a lot of games and even some outdoor games. We are trying to keep discipline in the game. Then we have to keep an eye on the length of the game, actions of the game officials because people can see the games in super slow motion and in high definition.”

But the language Avery slung at Darcy Tucker that provoked a skirmish on the ice prior to Saturday’s match in Toronto, was most certainly not worthy of supplementary discipline, even in the increasingly antiseptic NHL.

It is beyond belief that VP Colin Campbell would have summoned Avery to his office for a disciplinary hearing here yesterday, even if the winger was merely fined for “unprofessional conduct” and not suspended at the end of the day.

However, Comper said that VandenBussche’s story “hangs together perfectly” with someone experiencing “post-traumatic amnesia” and with his history of hockey-related concussions, going back to age 12.

Smith also suggested that VandenBussche, who testified Thursday he was on medically prescribed steroids at the time of the incident, “slanted” his responses during the interview to avoid a criminal conviction.

Comper, however, said he found VandenBussche “quite naïve about concussions and what it meant.” Commenting on hockey enforcers, Comper said: “The behaviour you see on the ice typically does not carry over off the ice.”

Earlier in the day, NHL director of hockey operations Colin Campbell testified as a character witness for VandenBussche.

note 1:22pm, I missed my morning coffee earlier today and forgot to note this was from a tele-conference Campbell did yesterday.

Q. So often in these things we hear about repeat offender things, that each suspension thereafter is harsher. Now we’ve had two against a team in a short period of time. Is there any provision where teams can now be held responsible for their players’ actions as well?

COLIN CAMPBELL: There’s nothing formal that holds a team responsible. I guess if you really look at the issues they have to deal with, their roster situation, they have to deal with paying the player and with other aspects that come with losing two players that they’re paying. But there’s nothing formal that punishes the team for the number of players who are suspended.

Colin Campbell was involved with a tele-conference call today discussing the Downie suspension.

Q. Can you characterize what Steve Downie did to Dean McAmmond? What you saw?

COLIN CAMPBELL: Characterize? We had requested this be put on the agenda for the board of governors. As a result, the general managers looked at a number of hits. We had 52 hits from last season that were not suspendable hits, but hits where shoulders were delivered to the head.

And from that meeting on, the general managers in June, it was in Ottawa in the finals, the Competition Committee met and reviewed the same hit.

We convened a group of coaches in late July, early August as well as having talked about the draft to a number of coaches, assistant coaches as well. We had six coaches that were brought in here and we discussed what we had found.

At the end of the day, there were a number of criteria that the groups didn’t like, and any of those criteria could get you suspended. At the same time, we wanted to keep hitting in the game of hockey. And legal shoulder checks to the head would be allowed if they were delivered in a legal fashion.